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WA-072 2015 Spring World Ark Book.Indb SPRING 2015 || HEIFER.ORG HEIFER UGANDA Saving Time and Trees with Biogas PLUS FLAMING OUT FOR THE RECORD Finding e cient cooking fuels 10 Too Sweet: how much sugar is too much? DIRT OF AGES Biologist Allan Savory shares 14 secrets to healthy herding READ TO FEED FILLS THE NEED Students log 5,000 books 32 for Heifer SOMETIMES IT’S GOOD TO SEE DOUBLE Have you made a gift to Heifer in the past year? You could double it with the help of your employer! Thousands of companies will match their employees’ gifts to Heifer…even gifts given months ago. Many companies even match retirees’ gifts. Go to WWW.HEIFER.ORG/MATCHING to find out if your employer has a matching gifts program. Just type the company’s name in the search field and follow the instructions from your employer. If you don’t find your employer, please check with your human resources department. Together we can Pass on the Gift® and make a big difference in the lives of men, women and children all over the world. 2015 Spring WA-Matching Gift Ad.indd 1 1/22/15 12:50 PM horizons OPENING OPPORTUNITIES Dear Fellow Activists, SOMETIMES IT’S GOOD TO SEE PHOTO LACEY BY WEST s we settle into a new year with fresh President and CEO Pierre Ferrari visits a cardamom grove in opportunities ahead of us, I’d like to put Guatemala with Country Director Gustavo Hernandez. Aforward a new way of thinking about the work we do at Heifer International. I’ve stressed before the determine how to close the income gap between what our importance of the word “end” in our mission: We work to farmers earn without our intervention, and what they need end hunger, poverty and environmental degradation in the to earn for a dignifi ed quality of life. And we are tapping into communities we serve. the entrepreneurial spirit of these families so they can take it When Dan West started what would later become the extra mile. This entrepreneurial spirit is already at work Heifer International, giving poor farmers the means to feed in Uganda, where families are saving themselves time and their families was a noble, attainable goal. Globalization energy by adopting biogas technology. You can read in this has made us all neighbors, and now we are able to more issue about Edith Kalale, who uses her biogas stove to make fully understand the big-picture struggles of the world’s pancakes that she sells to children walking to school. We are DOUBLE small-scale farmers. Barriers to women’s rights, land grabs, learning from cutting-edge experts, like Allan Savory, how to Have you made a gift to Heifer in the past year? You could double it terrible roads and lack of electricity all contribute to growing bolster our efforts to improve the lands our farmers inhabit. with the help of your employer! Thousands of companies will match inequality worldwide. But we also see more clearly the And we are doing it with support from you, our donors, their employees’ gifts to Heifer…even gifts given months ago. Many opportunities available to them to move beyond subsistence local and corporate sponsors, and Read to Feed participants. companies even match retirees’ gifts. farming, as well as how we can help open up these We don’t just live in a global economy; we are a global opportunities. community. Giving millions of small-scale farmers the tools Go to WWW.HEIFER.ORG/MATCHING to find out if your employer has We all want positive change for ourselves, for our global and support they need to end their own hunger and poverty a matching gifts program. Just type the company’s name in the search neighbors and for the world in which we live. Heifer for good makes this world a better place. field and follow the instructions from your employer. International wants to ensure that small-scale farmers are not only able to feed their families and earn enough money Yours for a great 2015, If you don’t find your employer, please check with your human for their efforts, but that they are fully, and for good, out of resources department. Together we can Pass on the Gift® and make a the trenches of poverty. How do we do this? big difference in the lives of men, women and children all over the world. We are looking at what a livable income is in the countries where we work. We are examining our programs to WWW.HEIFER.ORG | 1 2015 Spring WA-Matching Gift Ad.indd 1 1/22/15 12:50 PM Job: EDMKT-645 2015 Spring WA-Learning Centers Education Program Ad Date: 1/8/15 Final EXPERIENCE HEIFER: BOOK A FIELD TRIP TODAY! Heifer offers powerful global education programs that give students a firsthand look at hunger and poverty. Whether you want to stay for a few hours or for multiple nights, our three learning centers have programs to fit your needs. Discover all we have to offer. RESERVATIONS: 855.3HEIFER | 855.343.4337 Heifer Ranch Heifer Farm Heifer Village Perryville, Arkansas Rutland, Massachusetts Little Rock, Arkansas www.heifer.org/ranch www.heifer.org/farm www.heifer.org/village EDMKT-645 2015 Spring WA-Learning Center Education Program Ad.indd 1 1/8/15 9:36 AM End world hunger one book at a time Inspire kids to read and change the world with our Read to Feed® program. When you participate this Spring, you’ll be reading to help farming families in East Africa. The best part is that every dollar students raise will be matched up to $30,000 to feed these struggling families. Learn more at www.heifer.org/readtofeed or by calling 877.275.READ (877.275.7323) table of contents | spring 2015 WWW.HEIFER.ORG Dirt of Ages 14 BY JUDITH SCHWARTZ Grasslands sage Allan Savory spent decades studying herding animals’ effects on soil health. What he learned is that the land needs animals as much as the animals need land. The secret, he says, is in the scheduling. Refuse, Reuse 22 BY FALGUNI VYAS Turning trash into treasure is the idea behind a biogas project in Uganda, where participants magically COVER transform manure into electricity, cooking fuel and fertilizer. Jamira Webisa Nalyaka, 62, cooks over a biogas burner at her Literacy and Livestock home in Bunambale, Uganda. 32 BY JENNIFER WHEARY Cover and top photo Students at a special school in New by Olivier Asselin. York brush up on reading and language skills while pulling together as a team to donate a boatload of animals to families in need. WWW.HEIFER.ORG | 3 letters READERS RESPOND GETTING THE PICTURE ON AIDS Yes! The world needs unique things Thanks for the excellent visual and fashioned with the hands of a human stats on the AIDS epidemic, still killing being. And the people making them 1.7 million each year (“AIDS: The receive the satisfaction of being able to Modern Plague,” Holiday 2014). Anti- earn a living through their talents. retroviral therapy is working, but LAURIE WHITE JOHNSTON not everyone is receiving it, so the deaths continue. The Global Fund I’ve often wondered about this, “Does to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and it make a difference going forward?” Malaria is changing that. Thanks But I also think it’s worthwhile overall to an American pledge of $5 billion to be able to be self-reliant and that’s Volunteer Annette Sherden works with that must be matched 2-to-1 by other what I think “old” traditions teach us. fourth-graders at William R. Davie donors, the Global Fund is continuing I think it’s important, for example, Elementary. Students, from left to right, its work. This happened because that we know how to operate a car are Daisy Espinoza, Jayde Abshire, people asked their representatives to even when they’ll be able to drive Annalise Walterman and Keziah make this pledge. The power of our themselves. McCallum. voices cannot be underrated. When MICHELLE KELLER enough of us speak up, an AIDS-free STUDENTS SCHOOL generation will be possible. TEACHERS FOR HEIFER WILLIE DICKERSON As a school volunteer in a rural Snohomish, Wash. LIKE HEIFER county in North Carolina, I INTERNATIONAL offered enrichment to four bright ON FACEBOOK fourth-graders on my favorite We asked our Facebook friends AND ADD YOUR subjects—poetry, geography, if they thought Heifer’s efforts to FAVORITE STORIES. nutrition, astronomy and history— preserve knitting and weaving in six-week blocks, ending with a traditions in Peru were worthwhile. 30-question challenge. If all students Here’s what they had to say: outperformed a teacher of their choice on my quiz, I donated $20 to I particularly see value in marketing Heifer International. Motivated by assistance to help generate livelihood We want to the fun of selecting and giving an for these women. From what I hear from you! animal or share, the girls won every experienced in visiting knitting and challenge! When the students defeated weaving cooperatives there, they have Please send your comments to their principal, he too donated $20, so remarkable skills and quality supplies [email protected]. these girls raised $120 for animals for but greatly need help innovating Include your name, city, and other families. trend-current designs and finding ANNETTE SHERDEN distribution channels. a telephone number or email Mocksville, N.C. ANNIE MILROY PRICE address. Letters may be edited for length and clarity, and may be published online as well as Q&A SPRING in print. Because of the volume of mail we receive, we cannot Biogas is a great resource for small-scale farmers in developing countries.
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